Posted on 12/08/2020 10:02:58 AM PST by Red Badger
A wild panda with manure. Credit: Fuwen Wei.
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A team of researchers at the Chinese Academy of Sciences working with the Beijing Zoo, has found a possible explanation for horse manure rolling (HMR) by giant pandas. In their paper published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the group outlines their decade-long study of the odd behavior by the pandas and what they found.
Approximately 10 years ago, members of the research team observed a giant panda living in the wild pausing to roll itself in a large pile of horse manure. Intrigued, the team began watching for other observations of the strange behavior. Over the past decade, they documented 38 instances of HMR by wild giant pandas. Confused by such strange behavior, the researchers began looking for an explanation.
Over time, they noticed that the pandas were not just rolling in the manure, they were working hard to cover their entire bodies in the feces—and it was not just one or two pandas, it was dozens of them. Eventually, they that the pandas seemed to carry out HMR only in the cold months—specifically, when temperatures dropped below 15º C. That suggested the pandas were using the manure to somehow ward off the cold.
Giant pandas, like all bears, are covered in fur, and past observations have shown that they are very well suited to living in chilly conditions. Still, the evidence suggested the bears were benefiting from the manure, but only when it was cold. To find out what the incentive might be, the researchers began studying the horse manure. And they also noticed that the pandas only bothered with fresh manure. They isolated two chemicals in horse manure, beta-caryophyllene and caryophyllene oxide—both are aromatic and both dissipate quickly. They tried applying the chemicals to hay in captive panda enclosures and found that that pandas liked it—when it was chilly, they would roll around in it just as the wild pandas did with the manure. They next tested it with mice and found that it made the mice less averse to cold conditions.
The researchers suggest that the chemicals likely give the pandas (and mice) a feeling of warmth, similar to Vick's VapoRub on human skin. It does not actually help them stay warm—it just takes the sting out of cold air.
Explore further:
China's latest survey finds increase in wild giant pandas More information: Wenliang Zhou et al. Why wild giant pandas frequently roll in horse manure, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2020).
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2004640117
Journal information: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
© 2020 Science X Network
Interesting info, but I don’t think I’m going to try it when I go to the barn after work to see my horse. Just going with the usual winter coat.
I had a dog once that rolled around in cow pies, especially fresh runny ones..............
Because they’re Democrats!
Because they can.
“I had a dog once that rolled around in cow pies”
In my family are two dogs that occasionally wallow around in poop. Dogs are different from people. How many people sniff other people’s asses?
Interesting.
Of greater interest is the natural basis for this behavior?
They didn’t have horse manure to roll in in the wild. Do they use something else? Or is this learned behavior in zoos?
Real Answer: BC it’s fun!
It was observed in wild pandas. And horses have been in Asia for millennia.................
I don’t know.
I’ve never been to San Fransisco...............
Pessimist...enters a room full of toys and cries because someone will come and take him away from the room.
Optimist...enters a room full of horseshit and laughs and digs while smiling broadly because he figures with all that horseshit, there has to be a pony in there somewhere.
If you’re walking your dog near a salmon stream in the fall, be sure they are leashed - for some reason they love to roll in the rotted spawned out carcasses which smell really bad.
“Their decade long study”
Ten years watching bears roll in horse crap.
I guess it was a national emergency.
Pandas probably have no sense of smell.
I might have thought that rolling in the droppings of an herbivore would render the pandas with an odor “camouflage” so that possible prey would not detect their presence. However, pandas are 99% herbivores, only occasionally consuming a small rodent or two. Interestingly, pandas, which descended from omnivorous bears, are still physiologically and internally set up for an omnivorous diet, not a plant-based diet. So these research findings that rolling in manure might be like taking aspirin if you’re feverish is very interesting.
Wow, that’s something I always wondered about.........
Leni
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